Hundreds witnessed 12 year-old Joseph Wang win the under-16 division Sunday afternoon.
As each point progressed, each player took a few steps back, using topspin and unorthodox grips on the paddle to direct the ball left and right with pinpoint accuracy.
With each point scored, the four foot, six inch Wang -- who practices for 10 hours per week -- raised his fist and roared.
His opponent, 14 year-old Alden Fan, lives in New Jersey but trains in China during summers.
For these kids -- and college students and adults worldwide -- ping pong is not just a game.
It's table tennis and it's a real sport.
The National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) held its ninth annual team championships Sunday at Penn, in Pottruck Gymnasium.
Many Penn students knew of the event because they'd gone to play basketball and found 40 table tennis tables instead.
However, some of the frustrated hoopsters stuck around to check out the action, as 11 schools that had won their respective divisions came to compete for the championship.
Fresno State made the farthest trip of any team in the tournament, flying over 2000 miles from the west coast to hit the little white ball.
"These are the best of the best from around the country," NCTTA Recruiting Director Willy Learulo said. "They are varsity-level players -- well, as varsity as you could get for ping- pong."
In the final match, Illinois dominated Harvard, 3-0.
But the matches leading up to the championship round were very competitive and highly emotional.
After Johns Hopkins student Khoi Than lost in a semifinal match to Illinois, he cried.
In the other semifinal match, Indiana trailed 10-8 in the fourth game. The Hoosiers' Gurhan Gundez propelled his team to a four-point streak and a 12-8 win.
"The Cinderella team is hanging in there," Learulo said about Indiana, who founded their club just eight months ago.
But ultimately Harvard outlasted Indiana, three games to two.
In addition to the collegiate matches, there was a singles tournament for adults.
The final match featured two of the best table tennis players in the world -- Thomas Keirath, formerly the No. 2 ranked player in Germany, and a woman, Chen Wang, formerly the No. 4 player in the world. Each sported Adidas table tennis shoes, which are designed to be thin.
Keirath won the best-of-11 match, five games to one, losing only the fourth game, 11-3.
While Penn hosted the tournament, it did not finish as well as hoped: ninth place.
The team, consisting of visiting student Jack Wu from Duke, freshman Casey Ching, sophomores Alan Lewis and Daily Pennsylvanian sportswriter David Perkel, and graduate student Nilay Shaw, practices from seven to 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
After losing their first three matches to Columbia, Illionis, and Indiana, the Quakers defeated Georgia State and Queens University in Ontario.
The Penn table tennis club began this year, as no space was available until now. The team began the weekend with just four butterfly tables, but have since found three other tables in storage and the NCTTA left one table for them at the conclusion of the weekend's event.
"This is an awesome table tennis facility," Learulo said.
